.The argument from design

[Wesrock]

I believe what I’m saying to be true, obviously, but I feel a little overbearing sometimes putting a Thomist spin on everything. So, sorry about that. Regardless of what I write, there’s very smart people who are proponents of Intelligent Design Theory on the one hand and naturalist philosophy of nature on the other. I don’t expect my two cents to be taken as worth more than what it is. I don’t have any formal credentials.

 

[o_mlly]

This piqued my interest as I can think of a water molecule that has wetness as a property not possessed by its constituent parts.

I think of wetness as not a property of the combined elements but the condition of a thing immersed by the combination.

Ditto sodium chloride to the thing which has the power to taste. Perhaps the word “property” needs a better definition.

 

[Pattylt]

the condition of a thing immersed by the combination.

Sorry, but that doesn’t make sense to me? Everyone I’ve heard speak about properties of water talks about its wetness…I’ve never heard someone say immersed by the combination? What does that even mean?

 

[o_mlly]

Sorry, but that doesn’t make sense to me?

My shorthand explanation is inadequate. Here’s the formal principles:

1) The principle of sufficient reason, ontological formula:

A) there is a sufficient reason or adequate necessary objective explanation for the being of whatever is and for all attributes of any being.

B) full formula: every being must have either in itself or in another being a sufficient reason for its possibility, actualities, origin, existence and the mode of existence, its essence (nature or constitution), its subjective potentialities, powers, habits, operations, changes, unity, intelligibility, goodness, beauty, end, relationships, and any other attributes or predicates that may belong to it. (Princ. 35)

1. The principle of proportionate causality : the effect cannot be greater than the cause. (Princ. 87a)

Variant: the cause must possess, at least virtually but not necessarily formally, whatever perfection it gives to the effect. (Princ. 87b)
Variant: activities cannot surpass the perfection of the natures, forms, and powers which perform them. (Princ. 87d)
Variant: The cause always surpasses the effect somehow. The cause is nobler than the effect. That is, the cause of anything is that kind of thing in a greater degree. (Princ. 92)

Source:

The Metaphysical Impossibility of Human Evolution – Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation

 

[Freddy]

True scientific inquiry should be agenda-free.

Indeed. But from the Discovery Institute’s Wedge Document:

• To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies"
• “To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God”

Looks like an agenda to me…

 

[Freddy]

You’ve piqued my interest.

So are you saying that the ‘big picture’ of the created order speaks of an intelligent God, but that this doesn’t imply that he has consciously designed each part?

I think Wesrock explained it quite nicely. My 2c…

Some Christians believe in creationism. That God specifically designed and created most of what we see now as it is now. With some variations on that theme. That contradicts the scientific evidence. The Discovery Institute is aware of this. They have a lot of scientific literate people working for them who know that.

Other Christians believe that God is responsible for creation and set things up so that the whole kit and caboodle would end up with us. And that we can use the scientific process to work out that process. How God did it, in fact.

ID’ers would like you to accept that the second option isn’t entirely accurate. That God either didn’t want to, or could not, set up the initial conditions to get what He wanted. That He had to (and presumably still does) interject Himself into the process to fine tune it. So we’d reach a point where an aspect of an organism could not evolve naturally so God steps in to fix the problem.

Dembski was a senior fellow at the Design Intitute and is heavily invol ed in ID. He was also involved in the publication of a book called Of Pandas And People which was about creationism. After a court case in 1987 when it was ruled that creationism was not scientific and could not be taught in schools, the book was reprinted with all the words ‘creation’ removed and substituted by ‘intelligent design’.

You may draw your own conclusions.

 

[o_mlly]

Everyone I’ve heard speak about properties of water talks about its wetness …

Perhaps the “wetness” property is better described as “liquid stage” denoting a phase change the combination obtains at certain temperatures and atmospheric pressures. The constituent elements possess the same phase change properties from gas to liquid to solid as the interaction of molecules respond to the environment.

 

[rossum]

I recently read that the electrical impulses which cause my heart to beat are timed to within 110 milliseconds, and this accuracy has to be maintained for an average of 2.5 billion times during a lifetime.

This is very obviously false. Your pulse rate changes by a lot more than that depending on what you are doing; slow when resting to fast when exercising. The difference is much more than 110 milliseconds. The heart may sometimes miss a beat or insert an extra beat: ectopic beat. People can survive heart attacks when the heart stops beating for a short time.

Intelligent Design is creationism dressed in a cheap lab coat. It only pretends to be science, and hence often gets the science wrong.

In essence the ID argument is “Wow, that looks really complicated. It must have been designed.” The major problem with this argument is that their proposed designer is more complicated than anything they claim was designed.

There are many natural processes which can increase complexity, evolution among them. ID has so far failed to show that natural non-design processes cannot produce the observed levels of complexity observed in natural phenomena. That is one of the reasons that ID proponents try to support their case with false or misleading information; they have no real evidence so they have to rely on the appearance of evidence.

In short, ID is pseudoscience, trying to dress up creationism to give the appearance of science.

Finally, you should research the words “cdesign proponentsists” which gives a very obvious clue to the origins of Intelligent Design.

 

[IanAG]

Just a technical point, it is not ‘obviously false’ - the range of your heartbeat has nothing whatsoever to do with your QT interval.

The QT interval is the time from the start of the Q wave to the end of the T wave. It represents the time taken for ventricular depolarisation and repolarisation, effectively the period of ventricular systole from ventricular isovolumetric contraction to isovolumetric relaxation…

In other words the timing of a firing impulse within a sequence.

 

[FiveLinden]

Not quite. I believe everything brought about is intelligently intended by God

Really? Murder? Abortion?

 

[rossum]

Really? Murder? Abortion?

Ask yourself, who made the serpent in Eden?

Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. (emphasis added)

 

[rossum]

Just a technical point, it is not ‘obviously false’ - the range of your heartbeat has nothing whatsoever to do with your QT interval.

I think you will find that the timing goes wrong during fibrillation or during a heart attack. Both are survivable.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

Not quite. I believe everything brought about is intelligently intended by God

Really? Murder? Abortion?

Yes, actually. He knew for example, what Hitler would do under Hitler’s own agency and freedom, and he’s known it from all eternity, and willed Hitler and Hitler’s circumstances as part of his plan even so.

And so these evils come about as part of God’s consequent will, not that the evil is the end in itself that he desires. This can be contrasted to God’s antecedent will that all persons live up to the good of their natures.

 

[FiveLinden]

He knew for example, what Hitler would do under Hitler’s own agency and freedom, and he’s known it from all eternity, and willed Hitler as part of his plan even so.

Is this Catholic teaching?

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

He knew for example, what Hitler would do under Hitler’s own agency and freedom, and he’s known it from all eternity, and willed Hitler as part of his plan even so.

Is this Catholic teaching?

I’m expressing the Thomist viewpoint, which is consistent with Catholic teaching. I think the Molinist viewpoint (also consistent) comes to the same general statements I’ve made. The umbrella might be a little larger than the one viewpoint I’ve expressed, but I believe it’s the majority view of theologians.

We distinguish between God’s antecedent will and consequent will. An example of an antecedent will is that a parent wills/desires/wishes their child never come to harm. But, as an example of consequent will (actual consequences), the parent wills that the child have freedom to make mistakes and come to some harm since they will their child have some freedom to express themselves and learn.

Yes, I know, we have murder on the one hand and a child having their feelings hurt/knee skinned/financial failure on the other. But we also have the ultimate reality from which all other reality flows on the one hand and a human person on the other. I am only providing an illustration on what antecedent and consequent wills are.

This is one of the differences between theism (God creates and sustains and knows every moment of reality) and deism (God creates a machine that runs on it’s own and doesn’t know some things about it and it runs independently).